Terry Rozier might be playing his way out of Boston

Looking only at the end result, one would figure that the 2017-18 Boston Celtics season went exactly as expected. After signing Gordon Hayward and then trading for Kyrie Irving last offseason, the Celtics looked like an inner-circle Eastern Conference contender and one of the teams most likely to push LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs. In the end, that’s exactly what happened. The Celtics went to the Conference Finals and took the Cavs to Game 7, where they very nearly won the right to lose to the Warriors in the next round.

Of course, we all know the Celtics’ season was anything but ordinary and expected. Hayward went down for the year in the first five minutes of the season. The Celtics almost immediately began a 16-game winning streak after that, which thrust them to the top of the conference standings for much of the season. Hayward’s absence thrust younger players like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown into larger roles than expected, and also pushed the Celtics to turn to big lineups with Al Horford playing next to Aron Baynes more often than they planned coming into the year. And as we know, Hayward’s wasn’t the only injury that befell the Celtics last season.

Marcus Morris missed 28 games due to injury. So did Marcus Smart. Daniel Theis sat 19 games and Jaylen Brown sat 12. Even Al Horford missed 10 nights. And the most impactful injury was the one suffered by Kyrie Irving, a knee flare-up that necessitated surgery and resulted in his missing every game from mid-March through the end of Boston’s season.

Most counted the Celtics out at that point, but they ended up pushing further through the playoff bracket than anyone expected, in large part thanks to contributions from players like Terry Rozier. Scary Terry had already blossomed into one of the NBA’s best bench spark-plugs prior to Irving’s injury, but he took his play to an even higher level once Kyrie went down.

Rozier’s potential had been widely mocked — including by, well, me — over the course of his first two seasons in the league, as it was repeatedly reported that his inclusion was a sticking point in potential deals for stars. Rozier heard all the mockery and just didn’t care. “I tried not to read into it but it’s hard not to see it,” he told me last season. “It’s like, everywhere. But I’m with it. I’m all for it. I’m happy to be here. I haven’t got traded. This is a special place and I’m just happy to be part of this organization. I’m still here. I hope I’m here to stay.”

But that was in November. Before Rozier solidified his standing in the league as an above-average bench player. Before Irving got injured. Well before Rozier proved he has the capability to be a starter himself.

In 13 regular season games after Irving went down, Rozier played 33 minutes a night and averaged 15 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and nearly a steal and a half per game. He did so while shooting just 36.5 percent from the field, indicating that he had room to grow even from those numbers. And in the playoffs, he got better. If you remove his disastrous 2-14 night against the Cavs in Game 7, Rozier averaged 17.2 points, 5.3 rebounds, 5.8 assists, and 1.3 steals in 36.6 minutes per game across 18 playoff contests. He shot 42 percent from the field and 37 percent from 3. He got to the line three times a night and he was all over the place defensively, especially during an opening-round series against the Bucks where he ate Eric Bledsoe for breakfast, had Bledsoe leftovers for dinner, and then used the scraps to drizzle Bledsoe sauce on his dessert.

Rozier had some monster games during Boston’s run, flashing the right mix of assertiveness off the dribble and willingness to allow others their space to operate. (Though he did get too trigger-happy with his pull-up jumpers on occasion.) He showed better pick-and-roll vision than he ever had during his career, and that he had the ability to modulate his speed in order to catch defenders off balance. He helped out with rebounding, collecting six or more boards in nine straight games at one point. And he did it all while maintaining his defensive intensity and cutting off dribble penetration at the point of attack. That is, again, starting point guard stuff. And Rozier is still only 24.

But Irving is healthy now. Which means Rozier is obviously headed back for the bench. And not just that, but probably a reduced role even from last year, given Hayward’s return and obvious position ahead of him in the perimeter pecking order. It’s arguable — probable, even — that Rozier is no better than sixth on Boston’s perimeter depth chart behind Irving, Brown, Hayward, Tatum, and Marcus Smart. Is he going to be OK with that? So far, he’s saying the “right” things.

“I’m not worried about it,” Rozier told ESPN’s Chris Forsberg last month. “Kinda control what I can control. We all got one goal and that’s to win. We all get love when we win. That should be everybody’s mindset. It’s going to be a lot of fun. If you want to win a Championship, that’s what it’s going to take—sacrifice. […] We’re all going to have one goal and it’s going to lead us to the promised land.”

Despite being somewhat on the shorter side (6-foot-2), Rozier’s combination of strength and length (among 134 point guards listed at 6-foot-3 or shorter at the NBA combine, Rozier’s plus-7.75-inch wingspan differential ranks seventh overall), he can play alongside almost any other guard Boston has. He can work off-ball next to Irving, as the primary ball-handler alongside Smart or Brown, in a group with all three of those players, or none of them at all. That versatility means he should still have a sizable role, but it’s going to be difficult for him to showcase the full breadth of his skills if he’s not starting, playing heavy minutes, or working with the ball in his hands all the time. It’s difficult to argue that the Celtics would be best served by him doing any of those things. Irving should obviously start. There are several players who are likely to have a stronger on-court impact and so should be in line for minutes ahead of him. And the Celtics are better off with most of those players — probably all of them except Smart — having the ball in their hands than they are with Rozier having it.

All of this makes Rozier’s place in the league right now fascinating. He’s an important piece of one of the NBA’s best teams but mostly because he’s fungible and not pedigreed enough to really make a stink if he’s not used more often. He’s versatile enough to play with nearly any combination of players but not necessarily quite good enough to merit being bumped up in the pecking order ahead of any one of them. He can start, but if he’s starting then that likely means something’s gone wrong. He’s one heck of a Kyrie insurance policy in case the starter goes down again, but he’s also better than a “break glass in case of emergency” type player. He’s a valuable trade piece because of his potential and the fact that Boston has enough perimeter depth to withstand the loss of any one but player but due to his rookie-scale salary he would likely need to be attached to someone else in order to bring back a player for whom he’d be worth dealing.

For this season, Brad Stevens can probably make it work. He’s an excellent coach who gets the best out of all of his players. and this version of his team is stacked with star talent and starter-quality depth, Rozier included. The Celtics are the favorites to make it out of the East and they should be the conference’s best team during the regular season, in large part because they should almost never have to put negative-value players on the floor. This is a group that has not won together yet and if they all put it in their minds that the collective sacrifice will be worth it in pursuit of their goal, they have the best shot of any team in the East — and maybe any team, period — of dethroning the Warriors.

But what happens next summer? Irving is a free agent, but Rozier is as well. It seems obvious the Celtics will prioritize keeping Irving, though whether he stays is likely up to Kyrie more than it is the Celtics. Rozier should have plenty of suitors given that around half the league should have max cap space; and teams are always looking for young, starter-caliber point guards. (Considering multiple teams have already come calling for him over the past year, it seems highly likely that he’ll be in line for a sizable deal next offseason, whether from Boston or some other team.) Unless the Celtics trade Smart between now and next summer — which seems unlikely — he might not even be the first guard off the bench for the Celtics over the long-term if he decides to re-sign there. That’s a much more difficult sell on a multi-year deal than it is on the final season of his rookie contract before he hits restricted free agency.

The best case scenario for the Celtics probably involves Rozier playing so well that he becomes prohibitively expensive for them to re-sign next summer but good enough that a team has its sights so set on him that it’s willing to engage in a sign-and-trade next offseason. Even that brings complications, though, and complications often cause deals to collapse. Given how much faith the Celtics have shown in Rozier over the years and how that faith has been rewarded in the last year or so, it seems strange to believe that we’re heading into his last season with the team. But because of Boston’s roster dynamics, Rozier’s combination of youth and skill, and the looming free agency market next summer, that might be exactly where we’re headed.

Illustrations for this article were provided by Elliot Gerard. Check out the rest of the Stepmoji series here.